"Come on, squirt, keep it up!"

In an effort to keep pace with her idol, Scootalo kicks the ground as hard as she can with her hind leg to push the scooter, both of her wings flapped rapidly to give a little boost.

She had been chasing the rainbow-themed pegasus for a while, claiming that this one-sided tag game is some kind of training so she could be, in her own words, 'fastest scooter in the world'.

Not wanting to disappoint her idol, Scootalo pushed her body to its limit, her wing abuzz and both of her hind legs are ablaze with the constant kicking, it felt like her limps are going to fall apart at any moment but she persisted, she wouldn't let her idol down just like that.

She was so close to touching the tip of the multicolored tail, just a bit more, and then-

"Wah!"

Having so focused on the tail, she failed to see the rather big rock in front of her, as a result, the scooter flung her forward.

Being thrown without warning, Scootaloo had little time to process what just happen, when her mind catches up, there's only little she could do other than girth her teeth and cover her face.

Just when she was about to hit the ground, something hold onto her barrel, stopping the little filly from planting her face on the dirt.

Turning around she was greeted with Rainbow's face, despite the smile she wore, the worries in her eyes are clear as a day.

"You alright there, squirt?" she asked.

Scootaloo nodded and flashed her own smile, "y-yeah just surprised, that's all."

"Jeez, you should've look where you're going," she then put her down gently.

After thanking the rainbow maned pegasus, Scootalo went to check on her scooter, thankfully nothing was damaged other than a few scratches on the handlebar.

Making her way to Rainbow, who's lying down on a branch of a rather big tree, made her realize how tired she is, not to mention how sore everything is. When she arrived under the tree shade, it felt like she was in heaven and promptly collapsed, taking big gulps of air.

The two pegasuses sat there in silence, other than Scootalo's heavy breathing, and their mind wanders in different directions. At least Scootalo is, Rainbow just drifts off to a half-asleep state.

Her eyes landed on the scooter, what was once a broken piece of wood on wheels with rusty steer was now something that looks like a factory-new scooter. She still has no idea how the strange masked colt manages to fix it, maybe he's secretly a unicorn and has a horn under that hood.

She wonders what happens to him after yesterday's ruckus. Xandrich, if she recalled the masked colt name correctly, had run off into the Everfree forest where many beasts and foal-eating monsters reside after being chase by Rainbow and her friends, Applejack and Pinkie pie.

The pink-colored mare had gathered a hoofful of the townponies to search for the colt, but from what Scootaloo gathered, none had any luck finding him. However, most things she heard were from the rumors circulating the marketplace, and more often than not they're misleading so she wouldn't put her trust in that.

But why bother guessing from hearsay of stallion gossips when she can just ask the pony who participates in the search?

"Hey, Rainbow Dash, can I ask something?"

"You just did but go ahead, twerp."

Letting out a tiny giggle at the joke, Scootalo asked the question, "it's about that colt yesterday, I heard he got lost in the forest but that can't be true right?"

In her mind, it can't possibly happen, right? No pony with a right mind would willingly enter Everfree Forest. Not to mention, Rainbow Dash is the fastest flier in Equestria so it would be hard for somepony to outrun her, especially for a colt.

After a moment all she heard was silence from the blue mare, "...Rainbow Dash?" She asked again, maybe she didn't hear her question, "you did catch that colt before he got lost right?"

"Y-yeah of course I did!" answered Rainbow, though she sounds uncertain about it, "he's safe and sounds so don't worry about it!"

Scootalo let out a sigh, she knew her idol wouldn't let her down, "that's a relief, so do you know where is h-"

"Oh wow, look at the time!" Rainbow suddenly cut her off, "Sorry squirt but there's something urgent I gotta do, we can talk later. See ya!"

And off she goes with her signature rainbow trail, which is kind of rude of her, but if there's something urgent, she can't be blamed. Still, at least she can tell her where Xandrich is before flying off.

With her idol being busy with whatever she's doing and their daily hanging out time cut short, it left rather plenty of free time. She has nothing else planned until noon and she rather not sitting idly lest she gets restless, so with nothing better to do, Scootalo decided to do her pastime activity.

Treasure hunting.

*Crunch Crunch Crunch*

Sneaking in the junkyard was an easy thing to do, not only it was on the edge of the village, there's practically no one guarding it. Well aside from a meter tall wire fence and a single guard pony who's sleeping on the job, all I had to do was cut a couple of wires, and it's an all-you-can-eat buffet.

*Crunch Crunch Crunch*

With the materials I got from the castle ruin, I was able to make a more 'humanoid' body, or at least close to one, but I ended with a top-heavy body, buffed arms, and torso with small legs. The reason for this is because each arm has a grappling mechanism I use to swing from tree to tree, completely avoiding the ground and those pesky wooden wolves.

*Crunch Crunch Crunch*

Still, I gotta say while their metals are sub-par quality, then again maybe that's because they're here in the first place, the quantity seems to make up for it and it seems they won't miss a couple of tons of old metal. I already got my hand on what I need but why only take some when you can have all of them, scrap metal? Give me all of them, dead batteries? Down the hatch they go, used clothes? No one gonna misses them.

Although the last one only consists of only socks and most of them are still in a good condition, why someone threw them away is beyond me but hey, free shit so I'm not going to ask questions.

Grabbing another bar of an old rail track, I took a bit out of it like chocolate, while I rather not taste the rust, the feeling of 'eating' something brings comfort to my mind, plus it is easier to process it. I could just spread myself as strings around the junkyard and absorb all the stuff like a plant root but it wouldn't feel the same.

I already had enough to build a handful of H.A.W.K.S and other types of drones so if Bob raise an alarm I could just bounce out of here.

'Leaving out something like this in the open, I can't help but feel this is a trap,' I think to myself, shoving down the rest of the rusty bar down my mouth.

Well, whatever, I've been trapped or ambushed countless times but when you have a regenerative ability you tend to power through it. Most often than not it works in my favor if you don't count the collateral damage that is.

Just in case Bob decides to send something to me, I swept the surrounding area with a scan. With my luck, there's probably an ambush waiting just around the cor-

[Unknown life sign detected, caution is advised.]

Huh, that was quick, I thought Bob would at least take some precautions. I pulled the detailed result of the scan, it seems whatever it detected was something resembling an Equus, a small one at that, with two lumps of something on its back, probably wings.

A tiny voice on the back of my mind whispered this could be another trap and I should get out of here, I quickly dismiss that voice since I have enough material to create whatever I need. I'm curious what did Bob send to capture me this time, activating thermal vision I can see a lump of heat signature nearby. Just as the report says, the lump is only a bit bigger than my pony body.

I could just confront it head-on, but there are so many ways that can go wrong, so I opted for a stealthier approach.

While I don't have the necessary material or technology to create a stealth field generator, I can use the surrounding piles of junk as cover, I just have to be small enough to use it.

One reshaping later, I am now small enough to fit through the gaps, using a snake-like search robot and modified to be more flat and wide enough to fit both of my brain and core, and giving it some additional parts such as small legs along on its sides for greater mobility. A pair of giant fangs for self-defense and a pair of antenna for more accurate sensor reading in case Bob decided to have an entire battalion hidden somewhere.

I gave myself a look over, with a length of almost a meter long and multidirectional joint between each segment, it's easy to just 'stood' up and twist yourself to examine your own body. My body is divided into several parts, each part has two pairs of long stick-like legs and is covered with a plate of hardened metal which because I did a rush job it ended up looking like a carapace.

Making sure everything works as intended I ran a diagnosis and fix any issue that popped up, as always nothing seems like out of the picture. A 3D silhouette of my current body popped up in green color showing everything is...well all green.

Letting out a hum of satisfaction, I began crawling through the gaps between the junks, making sure to avoid any opening.

Despite looking like something out of someone's nightmare, being a centipede offer more mobility than a snake, at least in my opinion. Plus if this is a trap I could easily escape by separating my body into different parts and have my important bits haul ass while the other creates a diversion.

As I got closer to the heat signature, I can see whatever or whoever it is darting from one place to another as if searching for something, or rather someone.

In case this goes south, I had some of my lower segment armed with a couple of fully charged brick batteries, making them into makeshift walking shock bombs. While bombs like this wouldn't do much against organic creatures, at the very least it would be an effective stunner, this whole place is littered with conductive materials so a single bomb would affect a large area.

I created some basic remote-control receiver chips and installed them in my lower segments before detaching them, each segment then crawled in different directions like some sort of overgrown cockroach. On my minimap, I can see them represented as green dots, each has a status description above them that said [Armed].

After planning an escape route and being careful not to be in the range of the bombs, I slowly poke one of my antennas out and forming a camera at the end of it, giving me a real-time view of whatever giving out the heat signature.

I let out a hum of amusement, not expecting Bob to send out his smallest minion that I know. Not too far from where my 'eye' is Scootaloo, the same orange pegasus I bumped yesterday, darting from one pile to another, searching for something.

My sensor hasn't picked up any other sign of lifeform other than her, which raises a massive red flag, either it has somehow tampered or Bob is actually stupid enough to only send her. Just to be safe I armed the rest of my body, except my head and the part that store my core, with retractable blades and spikes so they can wreak havoc if Bob decided to teleport an entire army here.

Better deal with it now, this place is an ideal battleground for me with all the materials scattered around. I retracted both of my antennas and reshape my head, and since I don't have a model or time to create one, it ended up as a blocky shaped pony head with sharp edges and no facial feature, both of which I can solve by covering it with coat and mask respectively.

I slowly climb up as to not make any noise and poke my head up, being careful not to reveal my centipede-like body. I double-checked both the trap and my body for any mistake or error, after a brief report of all parts working as intended, I called out to the orange filly.

"Hey, Scootaloo!"

Huh, never knew a pony could squawk.

Author's Note

I was planning on finishing this before Hololive En Council debuted but it seems they just sapped away my motivation.

Well, excuses aside, I was thinking of speeding up things a bit at least until Nightmare Moon meets our little shapeshifter but it seems it wouldn't work well with the current pacing, but I let you guys decide whether or not I should be skipping things or not.

I have some things planned for the future and eventually bring him back to his own world rather than being stuck here forever but the question is how should I do it.

Oh and another thing, I have a side gig (if you can call it that) so I most likely be a lot slower on update my stories, so maybe once every couple of months, so I apologize in advance!

Anyway as always, keep an eye out for any typo and grammar errors, and let me know what you think about this chapter so I can improvise my writing skills!

Stay safe and stay inside everyone!